


A Fall Into the Dark

by lovelornity



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: A Controlled Descent, Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4849199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornity/pseuds/lovelornity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Sherlock could have listened with the ears of the man he had once been, before addiction had exerted its power over him, he would have seen what Oscar was trying to do. If Sherlock could be that man again, he would not have allowed himself to be led into that controlled descent into the darkness.</p><p>Coming to terms with Sherlock's actions in the season three finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fall Into the Dark

Sherlock could feel himself slowly losing control of the situation. He knew that Alfredo had been found, that there was no longer any weight to Oscar's threats of death. But the vile man's words still rang in Sherlock's ears, seeping into the recesses of a mind clouded by rage and weakened by self doubt.

_"I was going to be there to watch... when you realized that this is where you belong, in a place like this, Sherlock, with people like me. I was going to be there to watch you fall. Why do you keep fighting it, huh? Why put yourself through this? We both know it's just a matter of time, so why not just cut to the chase?"_

If he could see beyond himself, listen with ears belonging to the man he had once been, before recreational substance abuse had spiraled into something that had come dangerously close to ending his life, if he could be that man again, Sherlock would observe that Oscar's actions were those of a man on his last leg. That in glimpsing Sherlock in his recovery, Oscar had seen a strength that he himself lacked. He could never find it within himself to change, to become better than he was, and so in bitter jealousy, he had sought to bring Sherlock down to his level, since he could not rise to Sherlock's. If Oscar was garbage, than he was going to make sure that Sherlock remembered from what rubble and filth he had climbed.

The old Sherlock Holmes would have sensed that in succeeding to tempt the detective to succumb to his former predilections, Oscar was empowering himself, while also vindicating the demise of his sister: People fail. That's what people do.

Sherlock would have seen this, before M, before Irene Adler, before he had known how weak, how ordinarily _human_ he was.

But as it was, Sherlock heard Oscar's words with the ears of a man who was struggling with the monotony of sobriety, wavering with the uncertainty of a vacant support system, and reeling from the guilt of a newly-declared friend in jeopardy.

He had told Watson on the phone that his presence in the shooting gallery—bearing witness to the filth, the pitifulness, the peril of it all—had given him every reason _not_ to relapse. And he had meant it.

Until he discovered that he had been used, a pawn in a cruel game with a sad outcome. A game that he had seemingly won—Joan and Detective Bell had seen to that in the rescue of Alfredo. And yet, the ending had been fixed, regardless of the winner. For by the time he stood there on those abandoned train tracks with the beaten and unconscious body of Oscar at his feet, Sherlock knew at once where he belonged.

Down the same dark holes Oscar's sister had gone down.

But when he emerged again, into the light of day, he did not have the clarity, the mental peace that he had always welcomed as he settled down from a drug-induced high. Instead, he felt only shame, and with it, the insatiable urge to use again. For what else was he good for?

His intellect could not save him.

Maybe nothing ever could.


End file.
